


Burn

by VanamesGurl



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, anyway this is a whole ass mess, but its also shit so, good luck, i don't edit i die like a man, i love my soft boys, im sorry bc this has kind of angst, theyre super soft in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 23:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15784044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanamesGurl/pseuds/VanamesGurl
Summary: A look into how Keith burns, and how Lance is getting burned





	Burn

  He doesn’t remember the first time he saw Keith. Not exactly, anyway. It’s a blur of orientations for classes and tearful goodbyes from family. It’s an entire day of anxiety and excitement as he settles into this new place. He’s a constantly moving ball of eager nerves, bouncing through the corridors, each new room and face instilling a sense of determination, a burst of longing to belong. It all comes to a halt when he’s shoulder checked by some jerk with black hair. At the time, he had wondered who that asshole thought he was, had been angry that he’d never be able to give him a piece of his mind.

  Looking back, he’d recognize that mullet anywhere.

* * *

 

  Being a paladin had been exciting. Lance had known who he was, he had felt the call of the universe in his soul like a string attached to his chest. The stars he had always longed to see in person were at his fingertips, entire galaxies chanted his name. He was a part of the most powerful soldier in the universe, he was the sharpshooter, he was the Blue Paladin.

  But he was still invisible. Keith still had his back to him, kept walking, walking, running, vanishing. Lance could touch stars and save solar systems, but his fingers couldn’t even brush Keith.

* * *

 

  Lance broke his leg once, climbing a tree in Cuba when Luis told him he’d be too chicken. He’d climbed until his head breached the clouds, until the air was too thin to breathe. The top of the world was behind him, so he kept going, the stinging of his palms on the bark insignificant when compared to the soft blue sky above him, in front of him, around him. The breeze picked up, and Lance flew for the first time. He shed his jacket, abandoned his fears, and left gravity behind.

  But, as Lance learned, gravity is a vengeful, greedy bitch that can’t let anything go. Just when Lance was about to soar into the open air, she reared her ugly head and ensnared him in her claws, dragging him back to Earth. He hits the ground, feet first, and the world goes white with his agony. When he comes to, Luis is yelling at him as he carries him back to their house to get chewed out by their mother for being so stupid.

  His right leg was the only bone he’d broken, and it had been the most intense pain he could remember. At least when he saved Coran from that blast he’d been blissfully unconscious through the worst of it, and when he shot Sendack he’d been on autopilot. That whole experience was nothing compared to the clarity he’d had when they’d reset his leg. He was grateful to have no memories of the event at all. Lance is perfectly content having a broken leg be his worst pain, thank you very much.

  (He doesn’t remember the purple lighting. He doesn’t remember the soft voice asking him if he was okay. He doesn’t know what it feels like to have those eyes looking at him,  _ seeing _ him, those lips smiling at him, that hand clasped in his. He doesn’t remember, because if he did then that means that it happened, which it  _ didn’t. _ )

  Then Keith stops coming to the Voltron shows, starts pulling away even further. Despite them pulling together, despite being leader and right hand man, Keith leaves, again and again, blinded by whatever secrets he thinks the Blade has to offer. 

  Then Keith says goodbye and doesn’t come back, he walks away down the long castle hallway, and Lance watches him leave, he feels his heart burning, he’s choking on the smoke from the fire in his chest, his eyes water at the sting of it, and Keith is leaving again, he’s not coming back, people don’t just come back in war. They say they will and then they don’t and they just leave broken people and almost lovers behind. Lance is the only one to watch Keith walk away. Shiro stays for a moment, an odd presence, different since his return, and Lance tries to feel comfort. Until Shiro opens his mouth. 

  “I know you have your eyes on him, but he doesn’t have his on you.”

  Well, gravity isn’t the only thing that hurts like a bitch.

* * *

 

  The meeting ends and Keith lingers for a moment, just a millisecond, before he’s gone too, the screen going dark. Another coalition meeting over and done with, another plan locked in place, another successful status report. 

  “With the Olkari and the Blade teaming up to make stealth missions easy, we’ve been getting information faster and with more reliability!” Pidge announces, scrolling through her holopad gleefully. Next to her, Hunk nods enthusiastically as he reads along. 

  “It is nice to have so many allies willing to help,” adds Allura as she sorts through the notes Coran diligently hands her to leaf through. Even Shiro is smiling as he follows them out.

  Then it’s Lance, just Lance, (why is it always ‘just Lance’ nowadays? What happened to ‘Lance and Keith’? Was there ever an ‘and’? Some days he tries to remember a Keith, and his chest aches, as though his heart is trying to claw its way out to show the world its charred and smoking remains, as though it wants to find the one who did this to it and beg him for answers, for a reason, for  _ anything) _ alone in the control room, eyes glued to where Keith almost looked at him, almost opened his mouth, almost talked to him. 

_ Almost. _

  It burns

* * *

 

  Keith comes back, but he’s different. Not Shiro different, in the sense that he’s a clone sent to infiltrate and then kill all of Voltron, but he’s calmer. More settled. (And hotter, but, hey, who’s paying attention, right?)

  Before he’d left, they’d seen each other, talked to each other, knew each other. Lance sees a stranger in Keith’s place, some colder, harsher, more focused than ever before. His eyes haven’t changed, thought they seem lighter, as though finding his mother had finally eased some old burden. 

  When he flies Black again, though, all of the old tension returns to his shoulders. They’ve been flying for a while now, the real Shiro back and resting, the team confused but eager to return to Earth. Keith still doesn’t sit with them by the fire, though. Pidge and Hunk don’t notice, too enraptured in whatever piece of tech they’ve got now, Allura busy whispering and smiling with Romelle, and Krolia talking earnestly with Shiro and Coran about their journey ahead. Keith is settled against the paw of the Black Lion a few yards away, close enough to be there, too far to be present, staring into the open sky above them. 

  His hair melts into the inky darkness of the night, the new scar on his face enhanced by the dancing flames Lance uses to absentmindedly warm his hands. Keith’s petting his wolf, hand moving slowly as though by habit rather than conscious decision. Lance is so lost in staring that he fails to notice the flames licking his fingers until the burn is enough to rip him away from his observing to frantically pour water onto them. Keith doesn’t notice, and Lance tries not to choke on the irony.

* * *

 

_ The soft smile on his face doesn’t fade, even when Keith’s door slides shut behind him. He huffs in amusement now that he’s alone in the hallway, more than pleased with Keith’s awkward pep talk. He’s damn near giddy with how seriously he’d been taken, though, even if it pains him to admit that all it takes to make him happy is to have Keith so much as look at him. Some part of him thinks that it must be wrong to feel like this, but the rest of him knows that it’s better, that it’s  _ good, _ feeling like this. It’s Keith, his rival, his partner, and now his equal. What else should he feel but respect and admiration? (The love might be going a bit above and beyond, but Lance is nothing if not an overachiever.) _

_   Shiro’s voice catches him off guard, so lost is he in his musings. “He will only break your heart. Forget about whatever it is that you’re thinking of. It’s only going to end with you getting burned.” _

* * *

 

  Keith is leaving,  _ again, _ to save Axca. Who the hell is Axca? Lance doesn’t know, Pidge doesn’t know, Hunk doesn’t know - nobody knows! Sure, Lance hasn’t actually asked them, but they aren’t speaking up, so clearly no one has any clue what’s going on. All Lance knows is that they’re all exhausted, suck on an enemy ship, and their comms aren’t working for whatever godforsaken reason. He just feels the fire in him, burning higher and higher, but he swallows back the smoke and ash in his mouth and orders the team to move out.

  Later, when Axca tells Keith her path led her to him, the fire burns too high and too hot, so he decides he’d rather brave the sandstorm outside than the shitshow inside. At least he can blame the storm for the sheer agony in his eyes.

* * *

 

  It takes what feels like years before everything calms down, and he’s allowed to leave the Garrison’s hospital. He doesn’t tell the others, not yet, despite being the last one allowed to go. He just nods when the nurse tells him, gets dressed, and walks out. Where he’s going isn’t clear, but he’s going.

  He manages to convince Red to let him sit atop her, outside in the fading sunlight, finally seeing the constellations he grew up under. It’s bittersweet, now that he knows what lies behind them. (Agony, explosions, war, devastation - but there’s beauty

There’s sunsets with the team, water planets with mermaids, trees that whisper universal secrets, friends on every planet)

  He tries to remember the last time he went star gazing, but he’s too overwhelmed by everything else. ‘Everything else’ being Keith, and everything to do with Keith. He had been the first one to be released, he had visited his father’s grave, had talked with Hunk, but had yet to visit Lance. He had brushed Lance off, had ignored him, had overlooked him, had left him.

  He had trusted Lance to lead the team, had trusted him to watch his back once again, had panicked when he had crashed, had chosen him to go home ut of all the paladins. Lance is burning to know why: why choose him, why leave him, why trust him, why ignore him? He wants to ask the stars, but he has had too much experience with getting responses from space. He thinks he’ll just deal with this one on his own for once.

* * *

 

  “Lance.” When Keith speaks, rooms fall silent, armies rally, people weep, and the most beautiful devastation reigns. At least, for Lance. “We need to talk.”

  Lance straightens up from where he’s slumped on the couch, and bites back all of his initial responses(‘Oh, now you know my name?’, ‘Anything for you’, ‘Sorry, Lance is still dead in space, try again never’) to simply look at Keith expectantly.

  Keith sighs at his nonverbal response. “This is what I’m talking about. You haven’t said a word to me outside of meetings or Voltron business, and I need to know why.”

  Lance has stopped functioning, please try stopping and restarting the program. “What?  _ I  _ haven’t said a word to  _ you?” _

  “That’s what I said, yeah.” Keith grumbles. He’s avoiding eye contact, studying the walls, the floor, hell, even the couch. He looks anywhere except at Lance. He can’t take it anymore.

 “Of course we haven’t talked, Keith, you never even tried!” Lance can’t help it, there’s too much confusion, too much hurt, too much longing. “You never came to visit, you never tried to talk, you never said so much as a hello when you came back! You’ve been ignoring me since you first left for the Blades, man! Of  _ course _ I’m not going to talk to you, I can take a hint.”

  Keith’s eyes widen and dart to him in surprise, but immediately jump back to anywhere that isn’t Lance. “I…”

  “You still won’t even fucking  _ look _ at me, Keith!” Lance explodes, jumping up from the couch to pace, furious with Keith, with himself, with the universe. “I’ve been trying, man, for fucking years at this point to get you to so much as notice me, and when you finally start to, you up and abandon me, the whole team! What the hell am I supposed to do with that!”

  “I did it for you!” Keith snaps, and  _ oh. _ There are those eyes that never fail to knock Lance’s breath out of his chest. Keith’s just as angry, apparently. His eyes are burning, burning,  _ does Keith ever stop burning?, _ as he glares at Lance, and Lance is both furious and elated with just a single glance from this stupid, selfless, beautiful boy. “There weren’t enough Lions, and you were better -”

  “Fuck that!” Lanc cuts him off. “You don’t get to decide that shit, okay? You wanna talk about what’s good for the team? You have to actually stay with the team for it to matter! You left! And when you came back, you weren’t  _ you  _ anymore. You’re harsh and abrasive and you act like I’m invisible! You act like the very idea of being near me is something the entire universe has told you was a bad idea!

  “Well, guess what, Kogane! The universe can fuck off, because I’m not letting you go. If my fate is to end up without you, then I’ll tear the whole thing apart and stitch it back together correctly, because any universe where I’m not with you is  _ wrong, _ okay? So get whatever bullshit, self-sacrificial nonsense that wormed its way into your mind  _ out _ of your mind, and just go back to being with me. Be my friend again, okay? I  _ miss _ you.” Lance doesn’t know when he started crying, doesn’t even notice until Keith gently wipes away the tears on his check.

  “I’m… I’m so sorry, Lance.” Keith’s voice is rough and soft, broken under Lance’s emotion onslaught. “I thought you didn’t want… I just tried to save myself the pain.” Keith is still meeting his gaze, suddenly bare and vulnerable, and the most beautiful thing Lance has ever seen.

  “What are you talking about?” Lance can’t bring himself to even fully comprehend what Keith is saying, not yet, not when he’s still so close, when he’s touching his face to gently. 

  “I thought you liked Allura, so I tried to avoid you. When I called to let the castle know I was coming, you two were alone and hugging. Every time I tried to visit you, she was there.” Keith looks broken, like all of his fight, all of his fire is suddenly gone. The brave warrior is no more. He’s just a shell of bitterness and heartache. Lance knows how that feels.

  “I did like Allura, but not anymore.”  _ Not like I like you. _ “She’s smart and pretty and strong, but she’s just my friend.”  _ You’re all of those things and so much more. _ “Besides,” Lance chuckles, gently leaning his forehead to rest against Keith’s, “I only really started liking her to compensate for the fact that you left.”

  Keith huffs in laughter. “You know, I always knew I’d be my own worst enemy.”   
  “Keith you are literally so emo sometimes, it hurts.” Lance knows it’s probably not the best way to flirt, but this was  _ Keith, _ okay? Unorthodox is basically all that he knows. 

  Case in point, Keith huffs again before gently pressing his lips to Lance’s cheek. “Why do I like you?”

  For a moment, Lance can’t breathe. His chest is suddenly devoured by the inferno Keith brings to life in him, he’s on fire, he’s frozen, he’s elated, he’s terrified, he’s so in  _ love. _ “I don’t know, Kogane, why don’t you think on it, and get back to me when you know?”

  Keith actually laughs this time, pulling back enough to look Lance in the eye(the same eyes that have stared death down, that have narrowed at Zarkon, that have glared their way through war, that brought Lance to life like nothing he’d ever felt) and speak. “Oh, I know why. You’re funny,” he kisses Lance on the other cheek, “smart,” kisses his forehead, “caring,” the nose, “brave,” the corner of his lip, “beautiful, and so, so…” Keith hovers over Lance’s lips, eyes fixed on his soul, and Lance is torn between never wanting to break that gaze and desperately wanting those lips on his. “Lance, you’re so amazing, I honestly can’t find the words.”   
  “So stop talking, then, hotshot.” Lance challenges, and, as in every interaction they’ve had, Keith takes the bait, practically throws himself after Lance, and crashes their lips together, just as desperate for the result.

  Lance is on fire, yet again, but he will  _ never _ tire of this burn.

**Author's Note:**

> yikes, am I right? Anyway, if you were expecting something amazing, sorry, but my writing is a nightmare lol  
> anyway, this one goes out to AK Anime on youtube for their fantastic Burn paradoy  
> watch the video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRm3JLob3f0  
> Thanks for reading! Please leave kudos and comments!! I live for validation!


End file.
